IAM2892 – Serial Entrepreneur Offers Walking Tours in 90 Countries

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Transcription:

Juan Castillo 00:00
I think that the best hack is just a sales or a negotiation course because some people think that selling is just about being nice on how or having good people skills. And it's not, because there is a lot of research about selling and about negotiation and it's been done for many years. And you can just read those techniques and apply them and, and get them in your head so you can do them naturally. So you will get much better results with those courses. So it's a great investment of your time.

Gresham Harkless 00:37
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precise information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:05
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Juan Castillo of Guru Walk. Juan, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Juan Castillo 01:14
Yeah, thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 01:18
Super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Juan so you hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Juan is a serial entrepreneur from Spain who has bootstrapped 10 online projects so far and now runs Guru Walk, the biggest community of free walking tour guides in the world. With a team of 15 people in their offices in Valencia, Spain, and 2,000 guides in 90 countries offering this kind of pay what you want walking tours. Juan, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Juan Castillo 01:46
Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready.

Gresham Harkless 01:48
Let's do it. So I wanted to kick everything off with what I call your CEO story, hear a little bit more about your background and what led you to get started with your business and.

Juan Castillo 01:56
Yeah, well, actually I studied architecture. It was a kind of very different field. I was, like, really, really bad with computers and I was like the only one in my class who couldn't even install the antivirus in my laptop. So I was, like, really lame on that. The market in Spain changed a lot of time for architects and it was almost impossible to find a job. So I was struggling and I thought that, yeah, I should change and maybe think that last five years were lost, but they started in a different field that were growing more where the offer and demand was better for me. So I discovered like, E commerce and I started to think about the online businesses. And yeah, I did an E commerce store, which was these easy ones, the drag and drop E commerce store. And that went well, little bit. But with that money, I started another company, another project, which was also a marketplace like Guru Walk. And it became the leading marketplace of that, of that market in Spain. So that gave me a lot of money, like hundreds of thousands of euros in revenue. And with that money, I reinvested. Instead of buying a house or buying a car like everybody will do, I just reinvested it in many other businesses, like really crazy businesses and really ambitious, and all of them failed. So I lost everything. And after that, after one of my biggest failures, I decided to start coding. So I spent 12 months coding and learning ABN. I was learning also machine learning and AI. I was one of the organizers of an important conference about AI at the MIT in Massachusetts. Um, but at the end I felt that I wanted to start like my last project. I wanted to do a great project. And I was thinking, okay, which field will be like the best or which opportunity will be like the best for me in order to try to do like a really big project that will impact the whole world and will be, will be good enough for competing with, with maybe some competitor from the US who will raise 10 times more money than me. So yeah, I discovered this field about free walking tours in a very funny way because I had a flatmate in the past and he was very struggling to pay his rent, and his rent was €150 per month, so it was nothing. He was a photographer. And I called him, I told him, hey, Mark, how are you doing? How is your life in Berlin? And he told me, like, Juan, I have the best job in, in the world. What's that? He said, I'm a free walking tour guide. What the hell is that? I don't know that. So he said, I just walk people around Berlin. I show them the most important things about the city, and at the end they pay me whatever they want. And I said, can you leave with that? And he goes, the money that I spend, the less I earn, that I earn, the less I earn more than €3,000 per month. And I said, wow. So I started this, researching that, and I saw that there were people looking for this kind of tours in many, many, like in thousands of cities in the world. I saw also that there were people with potential to become great free walking tour guides. So this kind, this marketplace, I thought that it will make, make a lot of sense. And since now it's been a Great success.

Gresham Harkless 05:23
Success.

Juan Castillo 05:24
It's been spreading around the world, and we're very happy about that.

Gresham Harkless 05:28
Nice. I. I definitely appreciate that and definitely sounds like you have that entrepreneurial DNA because you keep, you know, wanting to. To invest in different businesses. Why didn't you decide to go and buy the house and the car? Did you want to kind of do these businesses? Was that just something that was just in you?

Juan Castillo 05:45
Well, at the beginning, since the second project went so well, I thought that I will. That I was a genius, you know, and I will do, like many businesses and they will all be success, successful. And that wasn't true. So. So I thought that with that money, I will do, like, bigger and bigger businesses. And it was like. It was, like, easy. Right. But it wasn't. I was. I got lucky the second time and. Yeah. Well, the best thing about failures is things you learn, makes you get your feet on the ground again, makes you humble, makes you learn. And that's the best. The best thing about entrepreneurship. You learn on the skills you develop.

Gresham Harkless 06:25
Yeah, absolutely. And it definitely led you to create guru walkers. I just, you know, marvel at the ability to be kind of see those opportunities to hear how, you know, you're having a conversation with somebody and you hear that, okay, you do what? And then next thing you know, you start doing research and you're like, oh, wow, this. Everybody's looking for this. And then all of a sudden, you start to create a business from that. So can you take us through a little bit more about Google? Can you take us through exactly what cities? Some of the cities and countries that you're in and exactly, like, how everything works?

Juan Castillo 06:52
Well, we are in 90 countries, and we are in more than 600 cities.

Gresham Harkless 06:56
Awesome.

Juan Castillo 06:56
So mainly, if you are traveling mainly to Europe or maybe South America, Lima, wherever, and Havana and Cuba, you just type a city, and probably we are there. We.

Gresham Harkless 07:08
We are.

Juan Castillo 07:08
We are. We are spread in many, many countries and many cities already. So we are very happy about that. But what was the question?

Gresham Harkless 07:16
Just.

Juan Castillo 07:16
Well, it's good to work.

Gresham Harkless 07:17
Yeah. How does it work and everything if people are listening?

Juan Castillo 07:20
Oh, yeah. So imagine that you are traveling maybe to Lima, Peru, or to Budapest in Hungary, or Paris or Rome. So you search the city and you see all the tours that we have in guru walk, like, all the guru walks, and you see which one you like most, and you just book, put your name and booking with one click. So you attend to that tour at the meeting point, at the meeting time, and that person gives you a tour about the most important things that he or she thinks that you have to, to to know about the city after the end. Till till then. Till then you don't have to pay anything. And at the end you just pay whatever you want. So it's pay what you want walking tour. So what this concept means is that you have the power to decide how much value you are receiving. But also it aligns the guides to keep putting a lot of effort in order to deliver a great quality, a great experience and doing super fun, super entertaining. So it's not that boring tool walking to like oh, with the, with the, the microphone telling a lot of boring shit? No, no, it's super, super funny and super entertaining because guys want to earn the best tips. So at the end it's a completely different experience. I mean people love it.

Gresham Harkless 08:37
Yeah, that makes so much sense. It's kind of like a performer. It's like this is your stage and you want to be able to give the greatest performance ever because you will get, you know, monetary benefit, they will pay you based off of that. But it just gives that opportunity for you to be more engaging, you to be funny, you to figure out what people want to see or what they want to. Then it's all kind of focused on the consumer, the visitor, the person that's actually setting up and doing the tour.

Juan Castillo 08:59
Exactly. But also on the other side, if you have a background in history, culture and all that other stuff that probably you don't have a good paying job, maybe you can sign up in Woolwalk and become a guide and show the best things about your city. Or maybe you want to move to a different country and to live in that city in Europe and you want to study and know all the most important things about the city and show it to other people. And you can earn a lot of money with doing that. So it's this two side business. And yeah, you can also sign up and become a guide.

Gresham Harkless 09:34
Okay. So you can definitely sign up if you have an expertise or even if you want to learn more I guess about it and be that kind of go to person. You can sign up to do that as well.

Juan Castillo 09:43
You can do it in New York, in your hometown and wherever. We are open to all the cities in the world.

Gresham Harkless 09:50
Awesome. I love that anytime you're able to kind of connect two groups of people, people that you know are traveling to an area, don't know what's around, and then somebody who actually does know and can be that tour guide and give the opportunity for everybody to win. I love when those two things kind of come Together. So awesome platform. And let me ask you this, you might have already touched on this. What do you feel is like your secret sauce or your thing that sets you apart or makes believe Google Walk unique?

Juan Castillo 10:14
Well, the most important thing about Google Walk is that we are the biggest platform. So at the end, if you want to research which stores are the best, at the end, the best place to look is Google Walk. So this is a marketplace. So you have to understand the business model of a marketplace. So the most important thing about the marketplace is become a leader in a category. Right? So if you are an Uber, maybe you can be leader in a city or in different cities. But in our case, since you like, a good thing about marketplaces is that the customers repeat a lot of times. So if you live in San Francisco and you start Uber just in San Francisco, maybe you will Repeat taking Ubers 3 times per week or 5 times per month or something. But you are not going to travel 10 times per month to New York. So you will travel to different cities. So at the end, for us, the most important thing is become leaders internationally. So it's a biggest challenge, it's a bigger challenge, but at the end, it's a biggest opportunity. Is the bigger opportunity. But the most important thing for, for, for, for a successful company idea, I think is two things. First is researching well the market. You can find a small, a small niche that the competition is not so strong and you feel that you can lead that small market, but also that you know that and you think that that market will grow and you can, you can lead that market and grow with it. So at the end, you want to find these kind of blue, blue, blue oceans. Yeah, but that's one part. And the other part for sure, if you want to build a company, it looks like a buzzword, but it's really, really, really important. It's like, how can you achieve to, to, to, to make a great team and a great team. It's made of great people and, but also great interactions between those people and keep them motivated, keep them engaged, keep them, keep them energized, keep them growing, keep them learning. So it's just those two, two things, good research before starting the company and building a great team. And those two things are difficult, but I think it's the most important thing.

Gresham Harkless 12:22
Definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Juan Castillo 12:33
It could. It could sound easy or silly or. But I, I think that the best hack is just a sales or a negotiation course because some people think that say, as selling is just about being nice on how are having good people skills. And it's not because there is a lot of research about selling and about negotiation and it's been done for many years. And you can just read those techniques and apply them and get them in your head so you can do them naturally. So you will get much better results with those courses. So it's a great investment of your time.

Gresham Harkless 13:13
Absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into that time machine, what would you tell your younger business? So.

Juan Castillo 13:23
Yeah, well, the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur, it's their own emotional and emotional things, like emotional battles, because you have a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. You have a. Anxiety by definition is fear of the future because you are taking decisions that you don't know how will end up. So that creates a lot of anxiety. Yeah. So the best hack, the best trick that I found about that is reading the stoics because it helps you change your mindset a lot. And, and doing that, your, your targeting goal, it's. It's not like selling the company to that valuation or earning that amount of money. No, no, no. Your, Your, your goal in life becomes to, to achieve the virtue. Right. But at the, at the same time you start you really focused in, it helps you focus in the things that you can control.

Gresham Harkless 14:17
Love it. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So Juan, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Juan Castillo 14:29
Constant challenges and constant learning, for sure.

Gresham Harkless 14:33
Yeah, absolutely. And kind of just speaking, you know, when we were talking about, you know, how you got started in the different ventures that you have and the thing that drives you, and I think that if you understand that failure is not failure, it's only failure if you stop. If you continue to go on and say, hey, this is a learning opportunity, it's a learning experience. So the next time I do something, I'm going to be even better at it because I have that bump in the road. But if you keep going, then it's hard to not be successful.

Juan Castillo 14:57
Yeah, exactly.

Gresham Harkless 14:58
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Juana. I think you're doing some awesome things. I appreciate that definition. Appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course how best they can get a hold of you and then find out about Guru Walk.

Juan Castillo 15:13
Well yeah they got for sure if you are traveling just type Guru Walk on Google and you will find awesome guides. And yeah if you are starting a business just never give up and keep trying. And yeah best of luck for all the community and for you with your channel and your community.

Gresham Harkless 15:32
Thank you. I appreciate that and we will have the link and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. Appreciate you my friend and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.